Help! New to Sourdough world
Hi all - I am an enthusiastic home-baker new to this community and to the intriguing world of sourdough! Apologies in advance for a very long post.
I’ve been having trouble with a basic white sourdough loaf.
What am I doing wrong?!? Is it something wrong with my pre-shape technique? Perhaps my ratios are off? Maybe I should not be putting it in the fridge overnight?
I began my starter on December 4th, and it seems to be going really well. I fed it every 24 hours until it was mature and then moved it to the fridge. Now I have a schedule of feeding the started once a week before baking.
I have made two loaves to-date; both seemed to be having trouble after the Bulk Fermentation stage. Especially the second! The first had very wet dough and didn’t rise very well during proving but miraculously rose during baking and preserved some nice air pockets.
But the second loaf has been a disaster.
Started yesterday - everything seemed to be going pretty smooth all the way through the bulk fermentation. During bulk fermentation the dough didn’t seem to rise at all even though I pushed this stage to 5 hours (stretching and folding every 30-45 mins). Further, when I turned the dough out onto a work surface to pre-shape it was slack, wet and goopy! No matter how I tried to tuck it or stitch it, I couldn’t get the dough to form a nice little dome.
I decided to keep going since I didn’t know what else to do... I formed the mess as best I could and proved it in a bowl with a dish towel (HEAVILY dusted in flour) overnight (10 hours) in the fridge. It was “Seam” side up if you can call it that, as the seam pretty much disappear into the wet dough...
This morning when I turned it out, the dough stuck to the towel (despite the heavy-handed flouring)! I kept going because, why not, I have gone this far - so I gently peeled off the towel (although there is still a big glob of dough smeared on the towel - which I will probably have to toss). I put the sloppy mass into my pre-heated cast-iron and baked (without scoring as it was just impossible)
The result is the embarrassing photo that comes along with this post - a flat disk of baked dough.
For reference, here is the recipe I used:
Levain:
22.5 gr starter
45 gr organic white flour
45 gr warm water
Dough:
475 gr white bread flour (stone ground)
330 gr luke warm water
autolyse right next to the levain for 30 mins
9 grams salt
If you made it to the end of this post I comment you! Any advice is GREATLY appreciated... I refuse to give up this endeavor.
Tell us everything you can about your starter. Pictures would be a great help.
Lets see if your starter is up to the task first.
Danny
yep need to see starter. your recipe seems fine. did you put dough straight into fridge after shaping? if so you would have got virtually no proofing time of value as fermentation drops to nearly zero in about 30 minutes in domestic fridge so best to keep it out and let the dough get going before refrigeration. Also room temperature? what is it?
How did the bread taste?
Agree with the others that we need to start with looking at the starter. Exactly How it was fed, how long it fermented before being chilled or used, room temp, those kinds of details. If the starter was warmed up before feeding, if water was icy cold, type of flour fed, aromas, any pictures (1000 words) anything you can think of or notice can be a great help.
Often, once the starter problem and timing is settled, everything else falls into place.
Thank you all for your comments!
Attached is a picture of my starter, just taken out of the fridge (this morning) - now that it has come to room temp I just fed it with 100 gr water at 93 F and 100 gr organic white plain flour.
I started the starter on December 4th with 50 gr of whole-wheat organic flour and 50 gr of organic plain white flour. I let it mature, feeding it every 24 hours, for 10 days before trying to bake with it that first time. After that first loaf, I fed it, and then put it in the fridge right away!
Then I had it in the fridge for 5 days before taking it out, let it come to room temperature and then feeding it, left it alone overnight (outside of the fridge) before making my levain. I did a float test (successful!) before as well. Should I also be doing a float test with the levain after that has developed?
Fridge temperature is about 40 F
Room temperature is 66 to 70 F (a small kitchen in London, UK climate)
Each time I have fed my starter since I put it in the fridge within about 9 hours I see pretty good activation.
Bread actually tasted pretty nice, a mild sour flavor - although the texture was very dense.
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